


this human thing: cronus, dirk

by orphan_account



Series: HHCOD fills [25]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: First Aid, Gen, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Mutilation, Self-Harm, ahcod request fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 23:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Non-SG/SB AU. Cronus does something incredibly stupid in an effort to make people take his humankin thing seriously; Dirk picks up the pieces.  Mind the tags.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this human thing: cronus, dirk

cyphercat asked:  
mixed universe, Cronus decides in a fit of stupid that cutting his fins down to ear-shapes will make people take his humankin thing seriously. Only self-surgery is immensely difficult and it hurts so much and he can't finish, which means somebody (Dirk? I'm flexible) finds him shaky with pain and bleeding all over the bathroom and miserable. patching him up ensues (bonus for stitches!) & maybe "you don't need to do this" sense-talking/feelings jam.

 

You knew it was going to hurt. Of course it was going to hurt, anything _worthwhile_ fuckin' hurt, because the universe hated you, that wasn't news. You had planned for that, and mostly your plans had consisted of "not minding on account a bein' a fuckin' badass," which turns out not to be the case. 

It hurts so much you feel sick to your stomach, and the blood doesn't help--shit, there's so _much_ of it, you didn't expect fins to bleed like that, you'd totally figured it wasn't a big deal because Meenah had hers pierced and didn't say anything about blood or hideous amounts of pain and you'd forgotten that Meenah actually _was_ a badass and now your left fin is drooping from a ragged scissor-cut through one of the ribs and half the sail and it _huuuurts_ and...

_oh shit someone's knocking at the door_

"Go away," you tell whoever it is, and hate that your voice is high and clogged with tears.

"The fuck are you doing in there?" It's...oh, hell, it sounds like the older Strider, the one with orange eyes and no sense of humor that you can discern. 

"None a your business, can't a guy have a little privacy?" Oh, god, are you going to be sick? You think you might be sick. The two candybars you had for breakfast are really not sitting well. The scissors in your hand have a little piece of your fin between the blades. 

That was just attached to you. It's not attached any longer. It was up until recently part of you and you're staring at it because now it's stuck to a pair of scissors, and oh shit, you _are_ going to be sick. 

"Gonna count to three," says Strider, "and if this door isn't open I'm opening it."

"Go _away_ ," you hiccup. 

"One," he says. You swallow back bile. "Two."

You don't actually hear him say "three" because you're leaning over the sink and heaving up Snickers--your mutilated fin flops back and forth with your retches and that hurts more than you'd thought it was possible to hurt, but he must have forced the door because suddenly there are hard hands on your shoulders and somebody is holding you steady. 

Strider is cursing in a steady monotone. When you're finally done throwing up he propels you over to sit on the closed toilet lid and tilts your face in his hands, getting blood all over him--it's on his white shirt, brilliant and vivid, and you know from experience that is never gonna come out, and you just sort of whimper in complete and utter misery. 

"The actual fuck," he says, "were you trying to do to yourself?"

You have, in fact, realized that this was not one of your brighter ideas. You realized that just about the moment you snipped through the first rib of your fin. Still, you try: "None a your business?"

"Kinda is my business if I'm sharin' a house with a dude bent on cutting bits off himself with a pair of kitchen scissors, Ampora. Seriously, what the fuck?"

You realize he's taken off his shades. His eyes really are that color; when you first met him you'd figured they were contacts, cause the other Strider's eyes are red like his blood. He's bending over you, examining the mess you've made of your fin, and...that actually looks like genuine concern on his face. 

"...wanted t' have regular ears," you mumble. 

"Huh?"

"Like you. Human ears."

Dirk Strider stares at you as if you have grown a second head. "You're kidding."

You can feel yourself flushing in embarrassment, even through the pain. "'m a human _inside_."

"Oh my God." He sits back on his heels, staring at you. "You _aren't_ kidding. Jesus fuck, Ampora. I don't even know where to start with how intensely fucked-up that is."

The tears you cry when you're being sick are drying on your cheeks, but your eyes well up again. Nobody takes you seriously about your humankin status. That's the whole point. That's why you need to not look like a seatroll, only right now you just look like a seatroll with a fucked-up fin, and everything is _terrible_.

"...ah, hell," he says, and gets up, going to the sink and washing away the evidence of your shitty dietary habits, then scrubbing his hands with soap. You watch him, dull and dazed with misery. When he starts rootling around in the cabinet under the sink and comes out with a first-aid kit the size of a tackle box, you blink. 

"What're you doin'?"

"Fixing you," he says tersely, and whoa, he's...putting on gloves? And what is that oh no _oh shit no that's a needle_ you are so not good with needles. "This is gonna hurt, but I'm betting it already does."

"No, fuck no, get away from me, Strider--" you cringe away, and he tips up your chin and looks at you and you can't not meet his eyes and they're...kind?

"Listen to me," he says, firmly. "We can talk about what you are when I'm done. Right now I need you to hold still and let me do this."

You aren't sure if it's his voice or that steady orange gaze, but something seems to sink into you and calm down some of the fluttering hysteria, and you just nod. And then shut your eyes tight and bite your lip, because he is doing things to your lacerated fin that send brilliant sparks of pain down your spine and make your stomach contract. 

It seems to go on forever, the little pinches and pulls at the raw edges of your flesh, but eventually the suturing is replaced with a sudden wash of coolness as he puts something on the wound. You open your eyes in surprise, because that makes the pain recede a _lot_ , and find that Dirk is cleaning blood from your face with a look of deep concentration, the very tip of his tongue visible at the corner of his mouth. "You're gonna have a scar," he says, "can't be helped, there's a bit missing, but it's not gonna be too bad. That shirt's a writeoff."

"Why're you doing this?" Whoa, you so did not mean to ask that.

He gives you a look. "Because it needs to be done, asshat. C'mon, off with the shirt, let's get you cleaned up."

It's impossible to pull your T-shirt over your head without causing yourself hideous amounts of pain, so you just let him cut the sodden fabric off you and sit biddably while he washes off the blood drying all over your chest and shoulders. He's careful around the gills, saying nothing, though you can tell he's curious about them. 

Now that the worst of the pain is over, you're feeling more than a little dizzy and exhausted. He packs up the first-aid stuff and then just helps you to your feet without a word. "Go lay down. I wanna talk to you, but you're lookin' pretty shocky there, Ampora." 

The dressing he's taped over your cut fin feels huge, heavy, but in the mirror it's just light gauze. You blink at yourself: at least you're not spattered with gore anymore, but you're pale as hell and your eyes have gone huge and dilated. "Feel weird," you tell him. 

"I'm not surprised. Go on, go lay down, I'll be there in a sec."

~

You put on a fresh shirt--one that buttons up the front, fuck pulling anything over your head--and do as he says, closing your eyes: everything is still terrible, but at least you feel like the responsibility for figuring out what to do next has been taken away. It feels good to lie down. 

When you open your eyes again he's there, and you're covered with a blanket, and a mug of something is on your nightstand. "Drink up," he says, handing it to you: hot milky tea with sugar in it, ridiculously comforting. You wrap your hands round the mug to stop them shaking. "Okay. Now. What's this human thing about?"

"'s how I identify," you tell him. Everything is sort of floaty, but that's okay, that's better than being aware of how much of an idiot you actually are. "Never felt like I was a troll inside. Was always like...I didn't fit in, y'know? I was different."

He still hasn't put his shades back on. 

"Then I started readin' about humans, an' it...like...fell into place? I was like, okay, this is what I'm s'posed to be, I'm just...hatched in the wrong species is all. I just...want to look like what I am inside."

One of his eyebrows is ever so slightly higher than the other one. "So you were gonna, what, trim those things down to human proportions with the kitchen shears?"

You wince. He goes on regardless. "And that was gonna make everyone go 'oh, hey, shit, this dude with the big orange zigzag horns stickin' out of his head, this dude who has gills and teeth like a barracuda, who's slate grey except where he's glowing purple, is suddenly indistinguishable from any other Homo sapiens out there'?"

It kind of sucks that you can't stop your shoulders from hunching defensively. "You don't gotta rub it in."

"No, I'm pretty sure I do, Ampora, cause wow, that's some weapons-grade stupid right there. Look, I get the not wantin' to be who you are thing. I get it. And it sucks if you don't feel like the way you look is the way you want people to see you. But hurting yourself is not gonna fix a goddamn thing."

"...di'nt want to hurt myself," you mumble, staring into the mug. "Just...wanted you guys to...take it seriously."

Dirk sighs. "Chopping bits off yourself is not really gonna make people take you seriously. Jesus fuck, just...you're fine the way you are, okay?"

You almost confess your darkest self-doubt and suspicion, that you're actually just desperate for attention, but stop yourself in time. 

"You do a lot of dumb shit to get attention," Dirk says, and you blink at him. "The hair, the mannerisms, the constant incredibly annoying hitting on people, that trick with the smoke out the gills. Which is, let's face it, totally natural. Everybody wants attention. You don't have to try so damn hard, Cronus."

You go on blinking at him. 

"Look, just...don't do this shit again." He gestures to your bandaged fin. "If you get the crazy urge to do any more homemade body modification, come and talk to me, okay? I mean it."

You should probably think of something to do other than blinking at him, but all you can think to do is nod. Your words have temporarily deserted you. Being pitilessly _understood_ feels so damn weird, as if you've gone transparent and he can see all the bits of you that normally stay firmly hidden on the inside. 

"Good. I'm gonna go clean the bathroom so nobody freaks out, and come up with some kind of story for how you got hurt that isn't as dumb as the real one. You stay there, get some rest, you lost a bunch of blood."

He gets up and leaves, and you stare after him, and just wonder why it feels as if the room got colder when he went.


End file.
